Book Beginning: On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service by Rhys Bowen

On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service by Rhys Bowen, August 1, 2017, Berkley Books
Genre: Royal Spyness mystery #11
Description: Royal sleuth, Lady Georgiana Rannoch, juggles secret missions from the Queen, Darcy, and her mother. Set in the Italian lake country. 

Book beginning:
Monday April 8, 1935
Kilhenny Castle 

Darcy has gone. Not sure what to do next.

I should have known it was too good to last. 
I had spent the last two months a Kilhenny Castle, Darcy's ancestral home. I had experienced the merriest Christmas I had ever known, with Darcy, his family, and the eccentric Polish princess Zou Zou Zamanska. ...

Page 56:
I must have drifted into sleep because I was awakened by the smallest of sounds. The click of a door latch. It can't be my door, I thought. I remember locking it....

About the book: An Italian villa, a pregnant friend, the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson, and other intrigues. 

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Crowned and Dangerous by Rhys Bowen: Book Beginning

The tenth mystery novel in the series by Rhys Bowen, set in the 1930s,  is getting good reviews.

Crowned and Dangerous: A Royal Spyness Mystery by Rhys Bowen, to be released August 2, 2016 by Berkley. Thirty-fifth in line for the British crown and with plans to elope, Lady Georgiana Rannoch and her beau Darcy O’Mara hope to bypass a few royal rules... But news that her future father-in-law has just been arrested sops thoughts of marriage, for the moment. It seems a rich American was murdered and Darcy’s father had more than enough motive. With the elopement postponed,  they head for Ireland where Darcy's father insists he’s innocent. (amazon)

Book beginning:

I was in a motorcar, sitting beside Darcy, and we were driving northward, out of London. He had whisked me away earlier that day, after we had both attended Princess Marina's wedding to the Duke of Kent. I first thought I was being taken for a romantic dinner. Then, as we left the streets of London behind, I began to suspect it may not be a dinner we were going to but a hotel in a naughty place like Brighton. But we were heading north, not south, and I couldn't think of any naughty places to the north of London. Surely nobody goes to the industrial grime of the Midlands to be naughty? I suppose in a way I was relieved. Much as I wanted to spend the night with Darcy, and heaven knows we had waited long enough, there was also that element of worry about the consequences. 

Page 56:
"Then he will need friends to stick by him," I retorted. "And fortunately Darcy seems to have plenty of friends, including me."

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Book Review: Queen of Hearts by Rhys Bowen

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. Post it. Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also, visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Queen of Hearts: A Royal Spyness Mystery #8 by Rhys Bowen, published August 4, 2015, Berkley

Book beginning, first chapter:

KINGSDOWNE PLACE, EYNSFORD, KENT

MONDAY, JULY 9, 1934
Dear Diary: Weather fine but absolutely nothing to do. Dying of boredom.

I was sitting in a white wicker chair under a spreading chestnut tree on a manicured lawn.Behind me the stately battlements of Kingsdowne Place, seat of the dukes of Eynsford, were reflected int he perfect mirror of the lake, its surface ruffled only by a pair of gliding swans. Before me was a tea table, groaning under tiers of cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches, strawberries and cream, eclairs, Victoria sponges, petit fours and scones with clotted cream. It was about the most perfect afternoon one could wish for, one of those rare English summer days when the only sounds are the buzzing of bees among the roses the clickety-clack of a distant lawn mower and the thwack of ball on bat at the cricket match down in the village.  

Page 56:

When we went down to dinner, there was no sign of Princess Promila.

"She was very subdued last night," I said. "I hope she's feeling all right."  

My comments: What an intriguing plan for a mystery series. A young English aristocrat, Lady Georgiana Rannock, is regularly commissioned as a royal spy by the Queen, who wants to keep tabs on everyone around her. Georgie travels on the Queen's behalf, reporting back to Her Majesty on the goings on with her subjects in and around the realm.

In this novel, however, it's Georgie's actress mother who persuades her on a trip across the Atlantic to America, where she plans to get a quickie divorce in Reno, Nevada, so she can marry her latest beau, the wealthy Max.

The trip on the boat across the Atlantic is adventurous, with lots of important people, including an Indian princess and a movie mogul, Cy Goldman. Cy persuades Georgie's mom to act in his latest picture in Hollywood and arranges for her to stay at his Hollywood mansion. When Cy turns up dead, however, several suspects at the crowded mansion come into the fore. Georgie is, of course, involved in the sleuthing to find out what happened to Cy.

Well known movie stars such as Charlie Chaplin appear at the Hollywood mansion, adding to the glamour and intrigue of the setting and place. The author seems to throw in everything but the kitchen sink to keep this mystery enticing. Even having an Agatha Christie-like scenario where many people are confined and isolated in a house where a murder has occurred, while the police try to find the culprit. And all these devices work.

I am looking forward to reading Malice at the Palace, the 9th and next in the series by Rhys Bowen.

A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.

Malice at the Palace by Rhys Bowen: Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Malice at the Palace: Her Royal Spyness #9 by Rhys Bowen, to be released August 4, 2015 by Berkley
Genre: British historical mystery
Lady Georgiana Rannoch won’t deny that being thirty-fifth in line for the British throne has its advantages. Unfortunately, money isn’t one of them. And sometimes making ends meet requires her to investigate a little royal wrongdoing.

While my beau Darcy is off on a mysterious mission, I am once again caught between my high birth and empty purse. I am therefore relieved to receive a new assignment from the Queen—especially one that includes lodging. The King’s youngest son, George, is to wed Princess Marina of Greece, and I shall be her companion at the supposedly haunted Kensington Palace.

George is known for his many affairs with women as well as men—including the great songwriter Noel Coward. But when I search the Palace for a supposed ghost, I only encounter an actual dead person: a society beauty said to have been one of Prince George’s mistresses.

As the investigation unfolds—and Darcy, as always, turns up in the most unlikely of places—the investigation brings us precariously close to the prince himself. (book description)

I have just finished reading Queen of Hearts, the eighth in the series, for a publisher book tour on August 4, and I must say it was full of surprises. I am looking forward to reading this one as well. 

Two Book Reviews: Naughty in Nice; and The Tale of Castle Cottage

These two cozies are English though written by authors in California and Texas. Naughty in Nice, A Royal Spyness Mystery by Rhys Bowen and The Tale of Castle Cottage: the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter by Susan Wittig Albert are both nostalgic mysteries, one set in the 1930s when the British vacationed on the Riviera and hobnobbed with the rich and famous, and the other in the very early 1900s, when children's author Beatrix Potter lived and wrote about animals in the English countryside.


The Tale of Castle Cottage is a very cozy cozy, set in the English countryside, with various animals representing the inhabitants of a village in the English Lake District. Here Beatrix Potter spends her summer of 1913 working and renovating Castle Cottage, the place where she and her fiance William Heelis will live after they marry. Theft from the construction sites and the death of a carpenter are the meat of the mystery novel, and the romantic aspect is supplied by Beatrix's engagement, which is frowned on by her parents.

This cozy is for readers who have nostalgia for all things British and especially for Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other children's stories. (My favorite character in the Potter stories was the hedgehog in The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle!)

In Naughty in Nice, a novel set in 1933, the main character is Lady Georgina (Georgie) Rannoch, a descendant of Queen Victoria. Georgie is a favorite of the current Queen Mary, wife of King Edward, who sends her to the Riviera to recover a valuable snuff box stolen from her by one Sir Toby Groper, an unscrupulous character living in Nice.

Famous persons of the day crop up on the Riviera. The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson appear, and Georgie stays in her mother's villa with the famous designer Coco Chanel, who grooms her as a model for the Chanel collection of the season. When Sir Toby is murdered, however, Georgie finds herself a suspect.

I read eagerly through three-quarters of the book but balked at the spot where Georgie is arrested. This change in the plot didn't sit well with me for some reason, and I flipped through the rest of the mystery just to find how the book would end. I knew of course that the true criminal would be found and charged with the murder. Overall, though, I enjoyed the period setting, descriptions of the Riviera, historical tidbits, and the lively characters of Georgie and her mother.

The books were sent to me by the publisher, The Berkley Publishing Group, for possible review. My opinions are in no way influenced by my receiving complimentary copies of the books.